


Empty Gold

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: ??????? - Freeform, Enemies to Lovers, Heist, Heist AU, M/M, kind of, more like rivals to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:36:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis Tomlinson, criminal mastermind, is recruited for a diamond heist by an old friend. Working with his usual partners Liam and Zayn is easy, but working with new names Niall Horan and Harry Styles proves to be more difficult. Especially when there's chemistry involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this has been in my mind for months but only recently has it come into flesh. I'm intending for this to be a long work, somewhere around 50k words, but it's my first time writing something so long, so we'll see.
> 
> I'm extremely grateful for any feedback, seeing as I'm very new to writing fanfiction!

The call comes too soon.

Louis is sat in a beach chair, a fluffy, expensive towel twined around his waist and a cocktail in his hand. The sun is setting over the Caribbean, casting rays of pink and orange onto the sand below him. With a pair of sunglasses on his nose and his phone silenced on a glass-topped table across the balcony, Louis is, for the first time in awhile, content.

He _thought_ his phone was silenced, anyway, but his thumb must not have flicked the little switch all the way off, because suddenly the glass top of the balcony table is vibrating with a horrible clattering buzzing noise, and the electronic notes of his ringtone– too bloody _loud_ – are filling his ears.

“ _Son of a_ –” Louis curses, sitting upright and glaring still ringing phone. “Really?”

Louis groans, sets his cocktail carefully on the floor, and stands up, holding the towel in place as he crosses the balcony. He picks up the phone with his right hand, and is about to end the call and silence the little machine once and for all when he notices the name of the caller.

Louis blinks once. Sighs. Then, presses the green button– _pick up call_ – and answers the phone.

“Louis!” The voice on the other side of the call greets him joyfully. “It’s been too long, far too long!”

“So it has, El,” Louis says, his tone dry. “You’ve just interrupted my beauty rest. This better be important.”

He hears Eleanor groan theatrically at him and imagines her rolling her eyes. “Don’t be difficult, Lou. Look, when was the last time you pulled a job?”

So that’s why she called. Louis pushes his sunglasses onto his forehead and squints at the suddenly more vibrant sunset. “About four days ago. I don’t know if you can feel the Barbados air through the phone, but I’m not exactly needing money right now, my friend.”

“Barbados, huh? Nice. I heard Giselle and Antonio Astor recently found the safe in one of their six houses empty, nearly a million pounds gone. Fancy that.”

“Interesting,” Louis says, feigning disinterest. He starts to pace, back and forth across the wide wooden boards of the balcony. “Who are they, again?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Tomlinson. It wasn’t the most high-profile job, but I know your style. I won’t turn you in, though, we have too much history.”

“Hmm.”

“Let’s cut to the chase then, shall we? My partner and I– business partner, I mean– have… a bit of a… feud, you might say? There’s this man, you see, who hasn’t been the most, er, courteous? To our business? And–”

“So you’re sending me to rob him in revenge,” Louis interrupts.

“Well, it’s, I mean–”

“Don’t try to justify yourself, El! I’m literally an international criminal, and here you are stuttering!”

“Shut it, Lou, I just know it’s a bit of a petty cause.”

“Believe me, I’ve worked for much pettier causes. Email me the details, will you? I’d like to take full advantage of my vacation and not risk the rooms on either side of me overhearing things across our balconies.” Louis cocks his hip, sandwiches the phone between his face and his shoulder, and reaches down to pick the cocktail back up, taking a long sip as Eleanor replies.

“Of course. Oh, and I’m thinking of recruiting Payne and Malik. You’ve worked with them before, haven’t you?”

“Course, they’re my boys! Well, it was pleasant talking to you. I’ve got to finish my tan.”

Eleanor laughs. “Stop trying so hard to sound jaded and sarcastic! Remember, I knew you at university.”

“You remember nothing.”

“Whatever you say, Lewis. Bye!”

“Bye, El.”

Louis hangs up the phone. He flicks on the silencer and returns to his chair. He probably won’t take the job. He’s pulled two medium-scale heists in the past four months, and so his monetary needs have definitely been met for a couple years and then some. He and Eleanor go back years and years– they were best friends at uni, after all– so he’ll probably take this as an opportunity to catch up with her. Maybe she’ll offer him another job in, let’s say, six months or so.

As the last rays of tropical light vanish under the indigo horizon, Louis closes his eyes behind his shades. He lets his senses be taken over by the island: the scent of saltwater, the feel of the soft breeze, the sound of his phone buzzing again on the–

“God _damnit_!”

This time, it’s just an email notification. Louis turns his phone all the way off and goes back inside.

››››

Louis is not woken by an alarm, or someone shaking him, or by a _fucking_ telephone call. He is awoken in the way God intended man to wake up:

Hesitant, yellow-gold rays slanting through his window and falling across his eyelids, the call of Caribbean songbirds muted but audible through floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Eyelashes flutter, slowly open; the ceiling above is painted light blue.

Louis feels like a fucking Disney princess.

He orders room service before even getting out of bed. After breakfast he showers and styles his hair, not that anyone will be seeing him today. He pulls on sweats and an old t-shirt, which really isn’t that much different from his pajamas, but hey, nobody cares.

The plan for the day? As little productivity as humanly possible.

Louis crawls back into bed and turns his phone back on. As soon as the lock screen has lit up, it’s already flooded by texts. Louis groans, but unlocks the device to read his messages anyway. He has time.

 

PAYNO (11:28 pm): did u get the offer from calder??

PAYNO (11:28 pm): looks harddd

PAYNO (11:29 pm): we can do it tho

PAYNO (11:29 pm): itll be fun

 

ZAYN (12:04 am): bro did u reply to el’s email

ZAYN (12:04 am): should we do it

 

_GROUP CHAT: PAYNO & ZAYN_

PAYNO (12:15 am): so we’re all in then?

ZAYN (12:16 am): i think lous asleep

PAYNO (12:18 am): wake uppppp Lewis

PAYNO (12:31 am): zayn????

ZAYN (12:53 am): yea

PAYNO (12:53 am): when r u gonna b in london

PAYNO (12:53 am): i miss ur dog

 

The rest of the conversation spirals into an in-depth talk about Zayn and Liam’s dogs that lasts until 3:42 AM. Louis is unamused but unsurprised.

He checks his email.

 

 **Eleanor Calder** _(eleanor@calderinc.com)_ _to will.thomas@porters.com, james.main@porters.com, jd.salman@porters.com, hstyles@gmail.com, crazyirishmofo39@gmail.com_

 

Louis frowns at the list of receivers. He recognizes his, Liam’s, and Zayn’s pseudonym addresses, but the other two are unfamiliar. While “hstyles” seems normal enough, Louis can’t help but raise an eyebrow at “crazyirishmofo39.”

 

_Hello boys,_

_For you, this job most likely seems unorthodox, unentertaining, and unlikely to succeed. I understand that. To work with people you are completely unfamiliar with on such a high risk assignment would be, to many, suicide. One small mistake, and everything collapses._

_But I must remind you this: with high risk comes high reward._

_If you manage to pull off the heist, your payment will be upwards of one hundred million pounds, each. My business partner and I guarantee complete secrecy._

_Attached to this message are a few rough blueprints that detail what exactly the job is. Should you choose to accept, I will meet you in the lobby of the Grosvenor House J.W. Marriott in London on May 21st at 7:00 pm._

_Whether or not you accept my offer, I wish you all the best._

_Eleanor Calder_

 

Narrowing his eyes, Louis clicks on the three files attached to the email.

The first is a profile.

 _Simon Cowell_ , it reads. Louis reads over all the notes on the guy. He’s a casino owner, apparently, in Las Vegas.

 _Vegas_. A smile creeps over Louis’ face. Classic. And while Louis is, of course, quite serious about his job, the more fun the location, the better the experience.

The second is a map, presumably of Cowell’s casino. And the third is a basic outline of a plan, ending in the words _one billion pounds_.

››››

And that’s how Louis winds up in the lobby of Grosvenor House London at 6:58 pm on May 21st.

It’s a pretty standard upscale hotel lobby, with clean marble floors and a high ceiling. Potted plants, so carefully manicured that at first glance they appear fake, sit at regular intervals around the perimeter of the lobby. Louis leans against the wall at the back of the room, partially hidden from the entrance by a few yellow wallpapered pillars. He’s wearing his fourth best suit.

Zayn is already here, leaning against a different wall and pretending to flick through his phone. They hadn’t greeted each other, only made flickering eye contact when Louis had walked in two minutes ago. It was enough to communicate that both were on edge about the meeting. While Eleanor was generally trustworthy, emails could be hacked.

At 6:59, Liam enters the building, looking too sharp to be fair. _It’s just a first meeting, Liam,_ Louis thinks. _That’s why I’m only wearing my fourth best suit._

At 7:00 sharp, a woman exits the elevator to Louis’ left. She’s dressed to the nines, black pencil skirt skin tight and diamond earrings glittering, a clipboard held close to her chest. She is also decidedly not Eleanor.

The woman’s stilettos clack as the walks to the center of the lobby and stops, then steps in a circle once to look at everyone standing or sitting around the room. She taps her watch pointedly, then sits down at a table.

Not Eleanor. This could be a trap.

Louis weighs the outcomes. The woman could easily be working for Eleanor, but it's never safe to assume. She could be with the government, or employed by someone Louis stole from.

Before he can come to a decision, someone else approaches Not Eleanor. Out of _hstyles_ and _crazyirishmofo39_ , Louis has to guess this is _hstyles_. This guy doesn’t look very Irish. Then again, you never know.

He’s not wearing a suit, which is interesting. Instead, hstyles has favored black jeans and a silk short-sleeve shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Louis narrows his eyes at the amount of tanned, tattooed skin the man has chosen to expose.

Silk Shirt Man talks to Not Eleanor for a moment, his smile widening by the minute. The woman’s face remains friendly but controlled. After a minute, Silk Shirt Man beckons someone over, and another man detaches himself from the wall and joins them in the center. The Irish one, presumably. He looks more Irish than Silk Shirt Man, anyway.

Oh, well. It’s now 7:03. If this is a trap, Louis can deal with it.

He strides to the middle of the room and seats himself at the table. “Hello, everyone. I’m assuming this is Ms. Calder’s party?”

The woman, up close, is stunningly beautiful. She sticks a hand out, her nails immaculate, and shakes Louis’s. “Sophia Smith, and yes, I’m here for Eleanor’s correspondents. I’m her business partner.” Sophia’s grip tells Louis that she could wring his neck if she wanted to.

“Louis Tomlinson.” He lets go of Sophia’s hand and turns to the others.

“Niall Horan,” offers the Irish one, his name and accent confirming Louis’ assumptions about his nationality. He’s wearing a blue suit that is noticeably cheaper than Louis’s, and his hair is bleached white blonde, the roots a telltale dark brown. His blue eyes are friendly as he shakes Louis’s hand with considerably less vigor than Sophia had.

Before Louis can introduce himself to Silk Shirt Man, Liam and Zayn appear, sliding into chairs beside Louis. “Sorry we’re late,” Liam apologizes. “Hi, I’m Liam Payne.”

“It’s only 7:05,” Sophia says. “I’m Sophia Smith.”

“Zayn Malik.” Zayn nods at everyone.

“Niall Horan,” Niall repeats. Their heads all turn to Silk Shirt man in tandem.

Oh, no.

While Sophia is beautiful, Silk Shirt Man is decidedly much more Louis’s type. His gaze could be described as knowing- like, piercing, but not sharp. His hair is shoulder length and vaguely curly. From four-ish feet away, Louis can’t tell if his eyes are green or blue. The man’s shoulders are broad, and Louis decides not to look lower than that. From far away, he had seen enough of this guy’s skin to know it’s in his better interest to keep his gaze upward.

“Harry Styles,” says Silk Shirt Man. His voice sounds like he's trying not to laugh at something. it's deeper than Louis expected. Harry makes a point of shaking everyone’s hand, standing up to reach Louis and Zayn at the farther end of the table, his shirt falling open even more. Louis doesn’t look.

“Good, we’re all here.” Sophia stands up. “Follow me, please.”

››››

They follow Sophia into the elevator and are taken to the fourth floor of the hotel. She leads them into a meeting room, standard upscale hotel meeting room. Someone is sitting at the head of the table. It’s Eleanor. Louis sighs in relief, immediately feeling ten times more comfortable in this situation.

Eleanor stands as they all come in. Her hair is shorter than when Louis last saw her, the ends bleached, and she’s wearing a blazer. “Welcome, boys.”

Louis immediately goes to the end of the room and hugs her. “Hi, El.” She smells like _Daisy_ by Marc Jacobs, and has noticeably gained more muscle since they last met up.

“Hello, Louis, it’s nice to see you in person again.” They break their hug, smiling, and Louis sits in one of the black swivel chairs close to the head of the table.

Each of the others introduces themselves to Eleanor. When Sophia reaches the head of the table, Eleanor pulls her in for a kiss. Louis’s eyebrows raise. El hadn’t mentioned _that_.

Sophia pulls down a projector screen, then sits down beside Eleanor at the head of the table. She sets her clipboard down next to a thick file folder. Eleanor clears her throat.

“I’m going to assume all of you have read the files I emailed you.” The projector screen flickers on, showing the map of Cowell’s casino. “Now that we can talk in person, allow me to explain the plan in more detail.

“Malik, Horan, you two are our tech team. Malik, you’ll be doing more hacking, and Horan, you’ll be handling the equipment. Payne, you’re mission control. Harry and Louis, you two are our burglars.”

Louis swivels his chair and looks at Harry. _He_ was a burglar? There’s no way. Louis is built to do this job. He’s slim and short and flexible, and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Harry, on the other hand...

Harry stares right back at him, quirks an eyebrow at Louis’s expression. Harry’s taller, broader, and is wearing a silk shirt that probably only costs a little bit less than Louis’s apartment. Louis cannot picture this man crawling through an air vent, or doing gymnastics to get through a laser alarm system.

Louis clears his throat carefully. “We need two burglars?”

“For this plan, we do. And I see that look on your face. While your attitude is one of the things I like best about you, Louis-” Eleanor’s tone is sharp- “I will not have it getting in the way of pulling this off smoothly. Your pride can not slow you down. The same goes for you, Harry. You- all of you- must learn to work as a perfect team.”

A perfect team. Louis can work with Liam and Zayn, he has a hundred times before. They, the three of them, are the perfect team. Eleanor is adding an extra tech guy and an extra burglar. They don’t need that. They’ve pulled jobs like this before perfectly fine, thank you very much-

Sophia is talking. Louis should probably be paying attention to her. It sounds like she’s going over the plan.

“...once we’ve scoped the hotel-” (Okay, she must’ve just described casing the joint, which Louis has down pat, so, whatever) “-we’ll start the actual job. Now, while Simon Cowell owns the whole company, a few of his underlings are high up enough on the ladder that we can use them to get what we want.” Sophia clicks the clicker she’s holding, and the picture on screen changes to a picture of a man’s face.

He’s in his forties or fifties, and has a George Clooney-ish appeal to him. “This is Michael Carter. He runs the casino, as in the building itself and what goes on in it.” She clicks again. The picture is a candid of Carter at a party, champagne in hand, talking to a guy in his twenties. “Carter has a habit of… connecting with the young and powerful,” Sophia smiles slyly. “Read: we have record of him sleeping with four different men under the age of twenty-five. One was a new money businessman, one a prostitute, and two the sons of wealthy CEOs."

Louis glances at the others. Liam looks semi surprised, Zayn and Niall vaguely amused. Harry is smirking at the screen. Louis narrows his eyes.

“One of you,” Sophia continues, “is going to have to seduce Mr. Carter here, for the sake of gaining information.” Suddenly, Liam looks very uncomfortable. Zayn’s eyebrows are raised, and Niall’s gaze is calculating. Harry’s smirk remains unchanged. “Because this stunt may require going, well, _farther_ than the general flirting, Eleanor and I decided to pick who we thought would be most comfortable with the job.”

 _It’s gonna be me_ , Louis thinks. Eleanor knows he isn’t straight. A sour taste rises in Louis’ mouth suddenly. What if they had only taken him for the job because they needed a guy who would seduce- and possibly sleep with- a man? He doesn’t think El would use him like that, but it’s been a long time since they’ve properly spoken, and people change.

“So,” Sophia says, “Styles, that job’s yours.”

Louis feels both Liam and Zayn rapidly turning to look at him, then Harry, then back at him. Niall is giggling. Harry just nods, the smirk fucking _still_ there. He glances at Louis out of the corner of his eye. Louis lets his hard expression relax for the sake of politeness, but only a little.

Does Eleanor not think Louis would be good at seducing someone? Louis wonders if she will ever finally forget the night in university when they had nearly, nearly slept together. It was not pleasant for either of them. To be fair, that was during one of Louis’s sexuality freakouts, which were a rather common occurrence during uni. He thought he was gay, then bi, then gay, then pan, then gay, etcetera, etcetera. It can basically be summed up by saying that Louis’s feelings for women seem to come and go, wreaking havoc whenever they choose to appear.

Louis wonders what Harry’s sexuality is. He can’t be straight- Sophia made it clear that they wouldn’t pick a straight guy to do the seducing. Louis pictures Liam seducing an older man and has to stop himself from guffawing.

Shit, Sophia’s still talking. “...while the diversion is happening in the casino floor. At this point, Zayn will be in the security system, allowing Louis to get into the staff only area above the vault. Now, Harry, you’ll notice that at this point in the plan you’re still with Mr. Carter at the showing. We have a side mission for you that we’ll explain to you later. Because of that side mission, Louis, you’ll be entering the vault alone.”

Relief washes over him. Breaking into things with two people is slower and more prone to discovery than working alone. Aside from that, he still can’t believe that six foot tall Harry would even have thought about being a burglar.

“...our vans will be waiting in the back, disguised as delivery trucks. From then on, it’s standard getaway procedure. The diamonds will be sold on the black market and we’ll all get our money within a week of the crime.” Sophia stops, then motions for Eleanor to talk.

Eleanor produces a stack of shiny black folders from underneath the table. She hands one out to each of the boys. “A copy of the plan is in each of those. These folders are highly classified, as I'm sure you all would assume. No one can see them. And because each of the folders is specific to one of you, _no one_ includes each other. Now, we aren’t keeping secrets from any of you, it’s just in your best interest to only look at your own folder, to keep straight your own role in the plan.”

Everyone nods. Eleanor stands, palms flat on the table. “That’s it, then. I’ve booked you all rooms here for the next few nights in London. I would suggest you spend the days getting to know each other. We fly to Vegas on Thursday.”

››››

The meeting with Eleanor is on a Monday. On Tuesday, Louis goes out for breakfast with Liam, and for lunch with Zayn. All three of them eat dinner together in the bar & grill down the street from the hotel. They split a platter of hot wings and catch up on each other’s lives.

“I haven’t pulled a job in seven months, bro,” Liam laments, sipping on a beer. “I was dating this girl, and I really wanted her to think I was a great guy. And since having a secret double life generally ruins relationships, I figured I’d turn my life around for her. I got a job! And then she broke my heart anyway.”

“And here you are again,” Louis says.

“I really thought she was the one!” Liam wipes hot sauce from his fingers.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “You think they’re _all_ the one.”

Louis zones out of their conversation when he notices a vaguely familiar blonde head enter the restaurant. “Lads,” he interrupts Liam and Zayn, gesturing to where Niall is looking for a table.

They wave Niall over and invite him to sit with them. When he’s settled into their booth, he orders a beer from the waiter. “I hope you don’t mind me eating some of these wings,” he tells them. They don’t mind.

“So, Niall,” Louis quizzes, “You’re obviously Irish, but that’s all we know about your backstory. Why don’t you enlighten us on how you came to be in the business, and how you know Eleanor?”

Niall sits up straighter, sets down his beer. “I went to school to be an engineer. I couldn’t afford graduate school right away, so I needed a job to get enough money for it. A friend introduced me to his friend, and they started me working on new technology for their, quote unquote, security company, ‘s what they called it. That was only about two years ago. Eleanor, I reckon she found me through Harry. We usually work together.”

“Oh, how’d she find Harry?” Zayn asks casually.

“He’s new to the game, but he’s pulled off, what, seven or eight really big jobs since he started, a little after I did. So his name’s all around the talk of all the old money people who fund robberies.”

Harry only has two years of experience. Yet Eleanor still has him being a burglar alongside _Louis,_ who has almost nine years of experience under his belt. The part of Louis’s brain that has been annoyed since yesterday about sharing the job flares up briefly.

Liam and Zayn are nodding along to whatever Niall’s talking about. Louis looks closer at the guy’s face. Pale skin, lively eyes, and a bit of a permanent blush add to an overall friendly demeanor. While he isn’t Louis’s type, there’s definitely some attractiveness about Niall. Louis wonders if he and Harry have ever had a thing- Niall said the two of them usually work together and– Louis glances at Zayn– working with a person all the time can heighten chemistry. Louis and Zayn have never _dated,_ there’s no romantic interest there, but there’s definitely been, well, _stuff_ in the past. And if Harry isn't straight...  


An image of Harry and Niall kissing flashes before Louis's eyes, and then a worse picture. Louis blinks and forces himself to pay attention to the conversation.  


Zayn is talking about the first job he, Liam, and Louis did together. It's a fun story, involving a wealthy widow who wanted to steal a necklace from her sister.  


"It was all because of the mother's will," Zayn is explaining, gesturing with his hands to go along with his words. "And so we were driving down the highway, going just over the speed limit so we wouldn't look too suspicious, when a police car pulls us over. Of course, we're all terrified, because we're all new to this-"  


"-but then the person gets out of the car, and it isn't the police, it's a third sister who wants the necklace to herself!" Liam finishes. "We were like, how complicated can this get?"  


Louis can't help but add to the story. "She starts explaining to us that both of her sisters are greedy, and she deserves the heirloom necklace, but at this point, we're just done with the whole thing. So Zayn fucking guns the engine, and we just go around her, leaving her shouting at us. And I look in the rearview, and she's not even chasing after us, she's sat down on the side of the highway crying!"  


At the end of the night, the four of them walk back to the hotel together, all laughing and shouting, just beginning to verge on drunk. Louis collapses on his bed, stripping and falling asleep quickly. He feels like he's made a new friend in Niall. _One down, one to go,_ Louis thinks. Tomorrow he'll talk to Harry. Even with his annoyance, Niall was so friendly that getting to know Harry can't be that bad. Louis's last thought before he drifts off is that maybe, just maybe, this job will go perfectly.

››››

The skin in his dream is tan and tattooed and so, so smooth. Pleasure courses through him as a body presses up against Louis’s own, a set of lips caresses his face, neck, body. Warmth envelops him, and Louis shivers, lets his mouth drop open, his breath coming in short whimpers.

Louis wakes up with a boner and a dark cloud over his head. The person in the dream was too specific.

He goes to hotel breakfast Wednesday morning, already primed to be fed up with Harry before he even sees him. Luckily, he doesn’t have to deal with him until late afternoon, when Liam and Niall have made plans for all five of them to meet at the hotel’s cocktail bar for tapas.

Louis arrives exactly nine minutes late, which is signature. After five minutes, they start worrying about you, but after ten, they think you’re rude. The goal is to maximize the host’s concern for you without causing resentment or a bad reputation. He’s got on khakis and polo shirt, which makes him feel unpleasantly yuppie-ish, but he had mostly packed suits and the khakis made his arse look nice, so.

Liam, Niall, and Harry are already congregating around the bar. Harry’s Hawaiian shirt is atrocious on its own, and the fact that he’s unbuttoned it to the belly button makes him seem like a retired beach-dweller who thinks he’s still suave. Liam and Niall are both dressed similarly to Louis.

“Hello, Liam. Niall. Harry.” He nods at each of them in turn. “Have we all ordered?”

Zayn ends up being seventeen minutes late, which is expected. He gives a short apology and immediately begins stealing sips of Louis’s cocktail. The cocktail is blue, and tastes like blue-flavored things usually do, except with more alcohol content. Louis is very appreciative of the bartender. Blue is a good flavor.

Liam and Harry are playing some kind of game that reminds Louis of truth or dare in high school, except without any dares. They just go back and forth answering increasingly revealing questions while Niall looks on and cackles.

“Fifty eight,” Harry announces, and Liam chokes on his drink. “Next question. How many...” he’s tipsy, and his smile stretches wide across his face. “How many, um, genders have you slept with?”

“Just one, mate,” Liam replies. His words, too, are beginning to slur. “I’d hate to disappoint you, but unless you’re a girl tonight’s not gonna end that way.”

Zayn is draped across Louis. His sleepiness is contagious. Normally, Louis would’ve wanted to be in on the game, but right now he’s content to watch.

“What a shame,” Harry tells Liam., giggling “What about your friends, though?” He points at Zayn and Louis.

Louis bristles. “Excuse me!”

“Hey, it’s _my_ turn to ask a question,” Liam complains. “Wait your turn! Okay. Um. Are you, uh...”

Liam struggles to think of a question, so Louis butts in. “Here’s a question, Styles: would you consider it appropriate to talk about sleeping with a coworker you just met to their face?”

Harry screws up his face in concentration. In a different situation, it could have been adorable. “Uhhhh... no?”

Louis sighs. “Just leave him,” Zayn mumbles, from where he’s slipped into Louis’s lap. “He’s drunk, you’re drunk, don’t pick fights.”

“Zayn’s really pretty,” Harry muses.

“You know who’s really pretty? That girl from the meeting, Sophie. Sophia.” Liam drawls.

“I want to go home,” Louis tells Zayn.

Zayn sits up, rubs his eyes. “Come to my room. We can cuddle.”

The offer is too good to resist. They start to leave the bar, but Harry catches on to Louis’s sleeve. “Waiiit,” he says, and Louis groans. “Don’t go without me!”

Louis turns around, leans into Harry’s space. “Oh, but Mr. Styles, I’ve only just met you!” He singsongs. “I’m sorry, but good girls like me don’t kiss on the first date!” Louis over-exaggerates a wink as he and Zayn take their leave.

When he looks back, just before they hit the elevators, Harry is staring after them, that dumb, drunk smile still on his face.


End file.
